“LaVar Ball plans to start league for high school graduates“, by Darren Rovell (ESPN). Face it, America: We bemoan violations on “living wages” and “tax evasion”, but we’ve happily let higher education turn into the worst violators of workers’ rights and tax law in all of history. American universities run their own sports leagues without paying their athletes, run their own hedge funds without paying taxes,… WAKE UP!!!

“Are your taxes going down or up?” (Wall Street Journal). A “closer look” at the effect of the U.S. tax reform on various groups. While it’s good to know how legislation affects you, let’s not get caught up in the effect on “our” group, remembering to consider the grand effect of a law on our community and society more generally.

“Warren and Sanders: Who is Congress really serving?“, by Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders (NY Times). Let me venture the following: In a representative democracy, politicians are elected to represent and to serve their constituents. Power resides in the people, and the people know it. In America today, politicians are career specialists, who ultimately serve themselves and their personal career interests. Power resides in the politicians, and the people vote for one politician or another in the hope that the politician will solve their problems. Fools! Do you not see that the power is yours?

whoever offered the most ubiquitous and secure platform would run the country’s digital future

I asked Kaevats what he saw when he looked at the U.S. Two things, he said. First, a technical mess. Data architecture was too centralized. Citizens didn’t control their own data; it was sold, instead, by brokers. Basic security was lax… The U.S. had backward notions of protection, he said, and the result was a bigger problem: a systemic loss of community and trust.